Johnson was born in Sweden, the son of Karl J. Johansson and Lovisa Petersson. He began appearing in movies in 1934, usually as boxers or wrestlers. In the 1940s, he played lumbering thugs and scowling plug-uglies. He appeared with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in Road to Rio (1947), in Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion (1950), and with Shirley Jones in the movie version of Carousel (1956).